Child Sexual Exploitation: Commons Select Committee reports Date 6 January 2015 Author Martin Rogers LGiU/CSN Associate Summary Two House of Commons Select Committees have published reports on child sexual exploitation (CSE), based on events in Rotherham and the Jay report into those events. The Home Affairs Committee published a follow-up to its 2013 report on the response to localised grooming, and the Communities and Local Government Committee published the report of its inquiry into CSE in Rotherham, subtitled ‘some issues for local government’. Both reports raise issues of continuing concern to local authorities and their partners as they make up ground in formulating a more effective response to child sexual exploitation. This briefing will be of interest to elected member and senior officers with responsibility for children’s social care and community safety. Overview Two House of Commons Select Committees have published reports on child sexual exploitation (CSE), based on events in Rotherham and the Jay report into those events. The Home Affairs Committee published a follow-up to its 2013 report on the response to localised grooming (see ‘Related briefings’), which reviewed the way in which prosecutions of child grooming gangs in Rotherham, Rochdale and Oxford brought CSE to public and political attention, and described CSE as a ‘large-scale, nationwide problem’ which evidence suggested was increasing. That report recommended that all Local Safeguarding Children Boards (LSCBs) should nominate a CSE coordinator and publish an annual report on local CSE work, and that LSCBs should work together to develop and collect data in a standard format in order to facilitate comparison and inspection across areas (a call recently echoed by Ofsted – see ‘Related briefings’). It also recommended that LSCBs should be required to set up a multi-agency safeguarding hub (MASH), comprising representatives of social care, local police, health professionals, education, youth offending teams and voluntary organisations. Following publication of the Jay report on CSE in Rotherham (see ‘Related briefings’), the Home Affairs Committee conducted a brief follow-up inquiry to consider the transparency and effectiveness of Rotherham Council’s response to CSE. This took evidence from a former manager of the Risky Business project in Rotherham, which worked with many victims of CSE in Rotherham, and from a Home Office-funded researcher employed by the council and located with the project. It also took evidence from the Chief Executive and Director of Children’s Services (DCS) in Rotherham, and from South Yorkshire’s Police and Crime Commissioner (previously the © Local Government Information Unit/Children’s Services Network www.lgiu.org.uk 251 Pentonville Road, London N1 9NG. Reg Charity 1113495. This briefing available free of charge to LGiU/CSN subscribing members. Members welcome to circulate internally in full or in part; please credit LGiU/CSN as appropriate. You can find us on Twitter at @LGiU lead member for children’s services in Rotherham) – all of whom have since resigned from their posts. The Communities and Local Government Committee’s inquiry also took evidence from Rotherham’s Chief Executive and DCS (both now resigned), which raised concerns that they felt should be put to the Secretary of State Eric Pickles and to the Local Government Association (LGA); it also took evidence from Prof Jay and from the new Leader of Rotherham Council. Briefing in full Communities and Local Government Committee report, Child sexual exploitation in Rotherham: some issues for local government The report’s introduction outlines three government interventions, all of which have potentially significant implications for local government: • the Independent Panel Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse • the independent inspection of compliance of Rotherham Council (being conducted by Louise Casey) • the appointment of a Children’s Social Care Commissioner for Rotherham, following an Ofsted inspection of the council’s children’s services conducted under the single inspection framework (SIF). The Committee considered whether to launch a full-scale inquiry, but decided that any further work by the Committee or its successor would be predicated on the findings of the Independent Panel Inquiry. In the remainder of the report, it sets out a number of matters of current concern, summarised below. Commissioning the Jay report The Committee commends Rotherham Council for the fact (largely lost in reporting of the Jay report) that it was Rotherham itself which commissioned the inquiry and report from Prof Jay. It is acknowledged that it took this action largely in response to an article by Andrew Norfolk in The Times. The extent of child sexual exploitation in England In her evidence to the Committee, Prof Jay was clear that Rotherham was not unique, and drew attention to the Deputy Children’s Commissioner for England’s report on CSE in gangs and groups, which found that ‘Serious gaps remain in the knowledge, practice and services required to tackle this problem. There are pockets of good practice, but much still needs to be done to prevent thousands more children falling victim’. In its evidence, the LGA also described the problem as ‘extremely widespread’, observing that ‘it takes different forms’ depending on the demographics and history of the area, and whether it is rural or urban. The Committee took the ‘alarming conclusion’, on the basis of the evidence it took, that ‘Rotherham was not an outlier and that there is a widespread problem of organised child sexual exploitation in England’ and that other LAs need to review their arrangements and the Government needs to ensure that the guidance and benchmarks are in place to ensure that these reviews are effective and that children are identified and protected. © Local Government Information Unit/Children’s Services Network www.lgiu.org.uk 251 Pentonville Road, London N1 9NG. Reg Charity 1113495. This briefing available free of charge to LGiU/CSN subscribing members. Members welcome to circulate internally in full or in part; please credit LGiU/CSN as appropriate. You can find us on Twitter at @LGiU Local authority systems The Committee comments on two matters raised by Prof Jay: • Scrutiny: Rotherham was found to have had no shortage of policies, procedures or plans, ‘but the weakness was that nobody checked whether they were being implemented, or indeed whether they were any good’. Prof Jay found a failure of effective scrutiny at many levels, and the Committee comments that ‘it is essential that scrutiny arrangements are effective and separate from the executive functions and that the executive needs to be challenged when there is evidence of an acute problem which it has failed to take into account or address’. • Senior officers and councillors: having heard that senior officers in Rotherham had presented reports on CSE to councillors, which members of the Committee felt would not have ‘immediately and unambiguously alerted the recipient that there was a serious problem’, the report comments that ‘the quality of the reports from senior officers and the apparent lack of challenge by councillors raises a serious question about the adequacy of skills and training of executive councillors’. Whistleblowers Having heard that there were arrangements in place for whistleblowers, but that there had been no whistleblowing on CSE, the report says, ‘The effectiveness of Rotherham Council’s policy on whistleblowers needs to be tested.’ The conduct of former council officers The former Leader of Rotherham Council resigned on the day the Jay report was published, and the Chief Executive and the Strategic Director of Children’s and Young People’s Services have left, or were leaving their posts as the Committee reported – which it concludes ‘was the correct course’. But the report says, ‘Prof Jay, however, makes clear that the departing officers had taken steps to improve the services at Rotherham’; it then goes on to suggest that ‘the departing officers’ predecessors… have serious questions to answer for their conduct during the time they were responsible for children’s services at Rotherham Council’, and says that it shares a specific concern with Prof Jay about the fact that minutes taken of a series of meetings around 1999 to 2003, involving the police and health service as well as children’s social care, about work on CSE in Rotherham are missing, and copies cannot be found. The Committee raised its concerns with the LGA about former senior staff in the event of matters arising after their departure (whether through a move to another employer or retirement), in particular over how they could be held to account whilst having a fair hearing, including an opportunity to defend themselves against any allegations, with full access to all relevant papers. The LGA set out its response to the concerns in a letter to the Committee. Ofsted The report indicates that the Committee will be calling on Ofsted to give evidence concerning the findings of inspections between 2003 and 2012, when it rated Rotherham’s child protection services as ‘Adequate’ and commented on improvements made since 2009. © Local Government Information Unit/Children’s Services Network www.lgiu.org.uk 251 Pentonville Road, London N1 9NG. Reg Charity 1113495. This briefing available free of charge to LGiU/CSN subscribing members. Members welcome to circulate internally in full or in part; please credit LGiU/CSN as appropriate. You can find us on Twitter at @LGiU Resources The Committee notes that there will be costs arising from the damage caused by the organised CSE in Rotherham, and from the findings of the Independent Panel into CSE – both as yet unquantifiable. The costs will include care, support, counselling and therapy for victims and survivors; ‘we would expect that substantial resources may be needed’. Home Affairs Committee report, Child sexual exploitation and the response to localised grooming: follow-up The Committee’s 2013 inquiry took evidence on the response of local authorities to CSE, with a focus on children’s social care in Rotherham.